On March 17th, Friendship Christian Church was destroyed by fire. On March 22nd, neighboring Tulip Christian Church raised over $5,000 to help. What an amazing (and fast!) response to this tragedy. Here's how one of the organizers describes the event, which took place at the Centralia Fairgrounds.

Tulip Christian Church and Friendship Christian Church are located 2 miles apart in a rural community. After the fire on Saturday, our minister asked us to all think about what we could do for the Friendship congregation. Some of us talked about doing a free will donation lunch. We put it together in four days because we wanted to get it done before farming season. The food and supplies were mostly all donated by church members, so it did not cost Tulip much in expenses. We used social media as the primary source of advertisement as well as a few fliers placed around town.

The outpouring of generosity from the community was surprising and a humbling experience. This was a great faith and community building experience for Tulip. We were able to raise a little over $5100, that will be donated to Friendship Christian Church, to use as they wish.

Thank you to Robin Reynolds and Rev. Fran Schnarre
for sharing this story and photos.